Kingdom of Loathing is, to quote Wikipedia, a “browser-based multiplayer role-playing game.” It was released all the way back in 2003 and is still being actively developed fifteen years later. (You may be aware of West of Loathing, which has a very similar style.)
The game has a rather… unique style. The playerbase isn’t what it used to be, but it’s still worth playing, and there’s a small but dedicated community of speedruners.
The game also makes for a few very interesting case studies. Kingdom of Loathing contains early versions of a lot of freemium elements… but far less predatory, and introduced years before they became popular. I particularly like its implementation of “premium currencies” and “turn limits.”
Today, I want to talk about gambling minigames.
(Specifically, the little fellow in the corner.)
Online gambling has become a rather controversial topic. It has been around as long as the Web, of course, but at least you nominally know what you’re going to get when you sign up for a legal online “poker school.” (You’ll be fleeced, but it’ll be entirely above the board.)
In recent years, real-money gambling has popped up in a few… unexpected places. Consider lootboxes. These are a great way to open your game up for real-money gambling. Even if there isn’t much in your game, lootboxes can lead to bad things happening in the cottage industries that spring up around successful games. (You may remember the CS: GO Lotto lads.) Turns out that gambling mechanics + real-world money + videogames == trouble, especially in games targetted at children (or teens).
So, about Kingdom of Loathing. The year is 2005, so we’re in the golden years for browser games. The game is officially in beta – as of this year, it’s fully playable, but a lot of features aren’t really implemented yet. (This is what we know as “early access” now.)
One of these not-quite-features was the Money Making Game.
(Fun was a little quaint in 2005. Meat is the in-game currency)
You see, KoL had a casino zone, but none of the games were actually… you know, interactive. You’d click on the link, and a little text box would pop up, informing you that your guy’s net worth changed by +/- x. The slot machines, poker room and roulette tables gave you a chance at winning or losing, though it wasn’t usually worth spending a turn. The Money Making Game (a Zelda reference) only ever took money from you. Funny, right? But also a bit pointless.
Enter November 28, 2005. Enter the great corruptor. Enter… p͜la̶y̨e̴r ͘in̡tera̸c̕tion.
(Portends of doom were also a little quaint in 2005)
The new “Money Making Game” (henceforth MMG) added, for the first time, an officially sanctioned way to gamble with other players. As the announcement implies, player-created gambling bots had already existed, but they were always a bit flaky. (Also, there was a risk that they’d just run away with your money.)
The whole thing looked pretty harmless. You’d create a bet, putting down anything between 1,000 and 100,000,000 Meat, and wait for someone else to take the bet. The game would then flip a virtual coin to determine who won. You’d both get some amusing flavour text about the result, the house would keep 0.1% of each player’s bet, and the winner would get the rest of the money.
(See, that’s normally a thought experiment, not a way to gamble. Zany!)
The “house fee” of 0.1% might seem odd at first, but it makes sense. You need something like this to discourage Martingale betting, but there are a lot of side benefits to having a fee.
See, as with every MMORPG, Kingdom of Loathing‘s in-game currency is subject to uncontrolled inflation. When you defeat a monster and pick up some Meat, that meat is created ex nihilo. The total supply of money keeps increasing, and there’s no central bank to keep a lid on things. If you don’t have drains for the created money, there’s a risk that runaway inflation will render the in-game currency worthless for trade among players. Then you end up with a barter system, and nobody wants that.
So everything is well… except for an insignificant little problem known as human psychology. For some reason, humans are really bad at statistics. Like, really bad.
A little math would tell you that the expected value of playing the MMG is less than zero. You put in x meat, and you get either nothing or slightly less than 2x. It’s like putting money on red or black on a casino wheel – the payout is 2x but you have a less than 50% chance of winning, so you’ll inevitably lose money in the long run.
(Look at that cheeky little blighter)
The only winning move is not to play (for µ = 0). The second best thing is to stop immediately. Even if you are significantly in the red. Even if you’re “due” for a big win. This is not something the human brain can ever accept, which is why we have Las Vegas.
If you like to watch people shadowboxing against math, I invite you to take a look at the talk page for the MMG and the original forum thread created after the game was implemented. Similar threads would continue to pop up over the years, but all the highlights are there.
Of course, it’s not entirely fair to blame just the gamblers. Successful casinos are very good at luring people in – that’s why they’re successful. For many gamblers, it’s just harmless fun, which may actually be worth the loss of money… but there’s always people who won’t or can’t control themselves and who end up spending way too much. Whales, in freemium parlance.
Kingdom of Loathing is hardly predatory, but you have to remember that a) people care about any loss (even if it’s just meaningless internet money), and b) there is a way to turn real-world money into in-game money (by selling the item you get for donating $10). So… yeah, the MMG occasionally gets unpleasant. People have lost all of their in-game money (and occasionally some of their real-world money) trying to beat a fair RNG, and it has caused quite a bit of grief. The developers have repeatedly made it clear that they dislike the MMG, but they’ve kept it around.
It’s the age-old argument about gambling legalisation: It may be bad, but if you try to ban it entirely, something worse might pop up. (In this case, player-run gambling bots.) If it’s officially approved, at least you can make sure it’s honest, and you can even syphon off some funds for public projects. You can make sure that people get help if they need it. (In KoL, it became something of a tradition to put a casino pass into your store, priced at the value of your MMG losses, just in case a kind soul felt like stepping in.) It fulfills a somewhat legitimate purpose, and people do get joy out of it, even if it sometimes gets… depressing.
In 2015, something interesting happened.
(Bit of an understatement there.)
In an unannounced (and indeed unacknowledged) update, someone started messing with the MMG. Specifically, they stripped out all the fun loss/win text, removed all the pictures and deleted the introduction text. The game is still available, but it looks very plain now. The remaining flavour text has become slightly… harsher.
Kingdom of Loathing is a very light-hearted game, all in all. It has a mildly snarky tone and a fun immature sense of humour, so it’s rare for anything truly sad or scary to show up. This is… off-putting. Out of place. It’s… really quite interesting, given how it’s the exact opposite of how gambling is usually advertised (glitzy, fun, your chance at riches). The game gives you the option to do this, but it really doesn’t want you to.
Due to its age and accessibility, you can do a lot of interesting case studies in Kingdom of Loathing. I’m not quite certain what the take-away is from the MMG, but I still think it’s fascinating, and its history is well worth preserving.
Update (2019-04-09): The devs have acknowledged the MMG earlier this year, making it slightly less accessible and increasing the house cut to 1%. Stop playing the MMG.
Now the game’s gone for good! https://www.reddit.com/r/kol/comments/cvs0nq/asym_the_house_cut_on_the_moneymaking_game_has/